Polo & More, Singapore 2017 Polo & More, Singapore 2017 | Page 15

Back in the UK, the first recorded ladies’ match was played at the
Ranelagh Club in Greater London in 1905, with Queen Alexandra in
attendance. In 1920, Taunton Vale Polo Club had the only woman member in
the country; Noela Whiting, rated 2 goals, who had learnt to play in Burma.
She was praised in print for her comprehensive polo skills, and Polo Monthly
stated that “no prejudice against women playing polo” should be levelled at
her. Nearby West Somerset polo club also staged a women’s match in 1921.
Laffaye writes that women player numbers increased in England
during the 1930s, however The Hurlingham Polo Committee, the forerunner
of today’s HPA, banned women from tournament polo and denied them
handicaps. However, Laffaye says that they ‘relented a bit’ in 1938 and hosted
a tournament for the Clanbrassil Challenge Cup at Hurlingham. After this, a
Ladies Polo Association was started in 1938 and the first ever list of women’s
handicaps issued in 1939.
Post WW2, women were more accepted in UK polo, competing in major
tournaments such as the Cowdray Park Challenge Cup; a team including
actress Celia Johnson won this prestigious tournament in 1949. Another
landmark in the UK for women players was when Clare Tomlinson (then
Lucas) became the first woman to play the Oxford vs Cambridge Varsity
Match in 1964; eighty seven years from the fixture’s first formation. Clare
entered as ‘Mr Lucas’ representing Oxford. She subsequently went on to
become the highest rated woman player in history off 5 goals, a feat later
equalled by Sunny Hale in the USA. In the 1970s, although Clare’s father,
Arthur Lucas, was an HPA steward, the HPA would not allow her to play in the
Queens or the Gold Cup, though her handicap was as good as or better than
those of the male participants. Clare and another talented plus-goal woman
player, Lavinia Black (2) then sent a lawyer’s letter to the HPA in 1978 to
the effect that they would petition the European Court of Human Rights if
they and other competent women players were not allowed to play the high
goal. “I do not remember the date, but the HPA backed down,” says Lavinia.
Subsequently, she played for England in women’s matches and on mixed
teams around the world and today still plays at Cirencester and Longdole.
Clare went on to be a part of the 1979 Queen’s Cup winning Los Locos
team and has become one of the UK’s most senior coaches, after devising
the UK’s first formal polo coaching system with Major Hugh Dawnay in 1993
and serving as England team coach.
But progress in polo is measured and it wasn’t until 2003, that another
female played her part in a winning UK high goal team, as Nina Clarkin (nee
Vestey) filled the number one position on the Hildon Sport team that won
the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup at Cowdray Park